Miscellaneous and Useless Information

When I moved to the Bay Area from New England, I noticed that KGO 7, the ABC station in San Francisco, used the same theme song and logo as WABC 7 in New York. Here’s a KGO “open” from 1989:

To my surprise, the theme song is from the movie Cool Hand Luke starring Paul Newman. It’s amazing how a 10-second clip became the basis for newscasts around the world.

Most TV stations now use themes only reminiscent of the original, after the composer of the soundtrack, Lalo Schifrin, demanded higher royalties. (Schifrin also composed the theme song to Mission: Impossible.)

Back in May, Bob Taylor spoke with Guy Raz at the Computer History Museum about his days at ARPA, funding visionary projects such as Douglas Engelbart at SRI and the ARPAnet, and founding the Computer Systems Laboratory at PARC. Here are some of my favorite quotes of Bob Taylor from that conversation:

Computers were abominable to use. (To the audience) How many of you have punched holes in cards? (Most of the audience raises their hands.) You look a lot smarter than that.

There are four people that claim to be the father of the Internet. What does that say of the morals of the mother?

“Mission-oriented research” by definition can’t be research.

(Someone who questioned the importance of the research Taylor was funding said to him:) “If what you’re working on is so important, why isn’t IBM working on it?” What do you say to an idiot like that?

Almost three years ago, I blogged about Microsoft’s plans for a new West Campus. They finished last year, and I was impressed when I visited it a couple of weeks ago. The Commons has a nice urban contemporary vibe to it, and it feels energetic. Other companies should definitely take note.

I noticed one amusing thing about the West Campus: instead of going with their traditional building numbers, Microsoft decided to letter the new buildings. And then they decided to re-letter existing nearby numbered buildings, to the amusement of some Microsofties.